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(1)Chrono Trigger vs (3)Super Smash Bros. Melee 2015
Results Round Four Monday, December 7, 2015 Ulti's Analysis For about half an hour, this looked very much like the Chrono Trigger we saw in the first three rounds. It was at 60% and rolling right along, and given the first hour is Melee's best time, the match might have gotten rather ugly by the end. Chrono Trigger getting over 60% on Melee would have definitely put it in contention to win this contest, because not many games are able to do that. In fact I'm willing to bet there are less than five. Chrono Trigger, Ocarina, Link to the Past, and Pokemon RBY could do it. I can't think of any others offhand. Oh and 30 minutes into the match against FFX, Chrono Trigger had 67.68%. Here, it had 60.33%. The debate is over. Melee would thoroughly annihilate Final Fantasy X. But unlike Final Fantasy X, Melee was not about to just roll over and die quietly while Chrono Trigger stomped over this contest. r/smashbros changed the entire course of this match, and really the entire course of this contest, with one rally thread. The thread got to the top of the subreddit really fast, too, and the effects were felt immediately. Over the next 20 minutes, Melee stalled the match as the rally gained traction. Then once it really got going, Chrono Trigger just got its shit kicked in. An 800 vote lead disappeared in just over an hour, and it's not like Chrono Trigger wasn't kicking ass and putting good updates out there. Smash was just that much better. There was no resistance once Smash caught up, either, and it just spent the rest of the overnight building up a 650 vote lead. But Chrono Trigger was not done yet, as it was able to take advantage of the dead zone to start pushing back. It was able to shave away the 650 vote lead down to 400 just before the morning vote started. One would assume Melee would win the morning vote and bry Chrono Trigger here given the years-long history of trends these two games have, but miraculously the morning vote also favored Chrono Trigger. It managed to keep pushing and stalling, and it got the lead all the way down to below 300. But the story of this match was rallying, in that Melee had rallies going for it while Chrono Trigger had nothing outside of Nick's Facebook group. And while Nick's group having 28000 members was good and all, that was the only external source Chrono Trigger had to draw votes from. Melee had Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, smashboards, and small fan sites all on its side. Chrono Trigger's biggest site to rally from, ironically enough, is GameFAQs. Chrono Trigger's major push (other than the first 30 minutes of the poll) to win this match was the dead zone and morning vote, but Melee was able to easily counter it with its social media presence. Reddit got going, pros started tweeting every time Melee was threatened, and Chrono Trigger was simply unable to match the armada of social media being on Melee's side. Melee would slowly push forward and build up a lead of 1100. Chrono Trigger would make one final gasp during the evening, and for a time it was actually meeting the comeback quota and making a real push. But Melee's fans noticed this, some more pros tweeted, and that was that. At 7 pm, with 5 hours to go in the poll, Melee had a lead of 931 votes. Chrono Trigger got it down to 728 an hour later, and with more of a bandwagon it really might have made a push to win, but Melee's social media presence quickly noticed this and puts boots to asses. Chrono Trigger's last effort was snuffed out, and Melee would go on to win one hell of a match by 1109 votes. During and after this match, Board 8 proved how idiotic its stance on rallying was, and how loaded with double standards this place is. The vast majority of the board not only wanted to see Chrono Trigger win this match, but they wanted it to win this entire contest. I agree it would have been an amazing story, and I am perfectly okay with people rooting for their favorites (even if it's Shadow of the Colossus, you can cheer or boo anything you want). My issue comes with people picking and choosing which rallies are psychologically allowed based on rooting interest. Everyone was all buttmad over Melee rallying to win this match, and they deemed it "unfair" because it "reversed the natural result of the match". Let's start with this "natural result" nonsense. So long as everything is done within the rules in sports, only one stat matters: scoreboard. Deion Sanders pointed right at it when the Chargers started trying to talk shit as the 49ers were whipping their asses. The "natural result" of this match was Melee 36195, Chrono Trigger 35806. There is no "the natural result of this match was changed". I guarantee you if Chrono Trigger could rally worth a fuck and had won this match, the same people whining about Melee's rallying would have supported Chrono Trigger's rally. That brings me to my other point. THE SAME PEOPLE WHINING ABOUT MELEE'S RALLY DURING THIS MATCH SUPPORTED MELEE'S RALLY AGAINST UNDERTALE. That right there was the dumbest thing Board 8 did during this entire contest, for very obvious reasons. Not only are you picking and choosing rallies, you're literally changing your mind on the same game based on its opponent. That is absolute garbage and is more transparent than the invisible man. Everyone was despondent about Chrono Trigger losing, and while people didn't blame Melee the game, they were just livid over the rally. The same rally they would turn around and support in the semifinal. Good job, Board 8. You support all rallies or you support none of them. Period. Picking and choosing based on rooting interest is intellectual dishonesty. Picking and choosing because of a psychologically predetermined "natural result that you feel would have happened normally", that you can't even prove, is just stupid. How do you know what a natural result would have been? You don't. The only natural result that ever matters is the final vote total. That's it. You don't get to decide based on assumptions, you get to look at the actual score. Lastly, can we knock off the bullshit about how outside rallies ruin our contests, as if they haven't been here since 2002? If you want to blame something for rallies, blame the site itself for treating its users like garbage for the better part of 20 years and chasing most of the regulars away. It's drastically reduced our natural vote totals, and people only come here when googling a game and getting directly linked to a guide or whatever. But the actual site? Shit. You cannot routinely slap your fans in the face and expect them to stick around. Adults want to be treated like adults, and as such, they've all moved on to reddit, social media, youtube, and so forth. So the rallies that have always been there now have a huge effect, because they drop in mid-2000s level vote totals into 2015 matches. Of course the outside will have a huge effect, and I'm happy for it. GameFAQs regularly getting its shit pushed in for treating its users like garbage is a net positive for the internet, and hopefully this continues happening every contest. People need to be exposed to other, better sites where the users are treated like actual adult human beings. The more people realize how good sites like reddit are, the more GameFAQs will realize that they need to stop with the garbage-ass way it treats its users. There's a certain dictionary site that was autoflagged here for years (because GameFAQs loves to coddle people in a little bubble, shield them from the real world and treat them like 13 year-olds, like good little politically correct liberals). Go look up GameFAQs Moderator on that site. There is a reason our polls get no votes and everyone moved on to other sites. Back to rallies. They've always been there, but now they matter a lot more because we not only have no regulars, but our poll numbers are in the tank. Let me pull up a round 1 match from 2009, featuring a game that was very much rallied but still lost: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/3447-division-1-round-1-mega-man-2-pac-man-pong-oregon-trail The Oregon Trail scored 25220 votes in that match, got rallied, and was still blown out. The poll scored 117749 votes. That number is unheard of naturally now, and that same exact rally in 2015 would look very different. So don't blame reddit, tumblr, or whatever else for our contests being a lot easier to influence now. Blame GameFAQs. The site you all love so much has gradually and assuredly failed you, and with each new contest it becomes more and more apparent. By 2020, I'm sure our regular Poll of the Day will struggle to break 10,000 votes. But don't try saying rallies are some new thing, because it's flat-out not true. http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/996-north-division-final-mario-vs-cloud-strife "But Mario's rally ruined the natural result!" Scoreboard. Check it. Oh, and Melee is a better game than Chrono Trigger. I love Chrono Trigger, but the right game won this match. Ctes' Analysis I hate to complain about contests and all, but damn I would like if I said this result didn't make me sad. This match is the most depressing contest result of all contests to me. In the blink of an eye what I was enjoying the most about the contest was screwed over completely and out of nowhere. It wasn't even by nice and passionate fans, at least most of them were being were arrogant about rallying their e-sport to victory. It felt awful to see them gloat about beating not only one of my absolute favorite games, but also the game I was most exciting about having in the late stages of the contest. I was so hyped about seeing Chrono Trigger against at least Final Fantasy VII. Especially after last round. It looked ready to dethrone Ocarina of Time and it was something everyone could get behind, since its strength pretty much purely came from inside GameFAQs. A 20 year game suddenly just being much more than legit, suddenly seeming like it could swallow any opponent whole without outside forces. I really wanted to see that, almost everyone really wanted to see that, but then a game that is already really strong, but Chrono Trigger somehow would've run over as well rallied like crazy. The dream shattered today. I wasn't being whiny, I wasn't being rude to anyone, I was just so sad. One could argue that the match itself was good because it was close for so long, but I really don't think it was. Chrono Trigger held up like a king, but it was pretty clear how much rally power Melee had, it always seemed like just a matter of time before Melee would take over completely. Every time Chrono Trigger was coming back, someone just rallied a bit more with little effort and then Melee dominated. Anybody believing in Chrono Trigger after a few hours was just not paying attention to the rallies, only the votals. Chrono Trigger opening the match looking like the beast we had seen in the previous rounds. It was quite shortlived, but you know how amazing Melee's board vote is? How insane it tends to look in the opening minutes? Well, Chrono Trigger held it down in a very convincing manner. After slowly going up to a +100 vote increase during the first five minutes where Melee is a beast, it completely ran away for some updates. This was even still during a good time for Melee. Chrono Trigger was running away during Melee's best time, it seemed like sooner or later, it would bury Melee completely. However, half an hour in it kinda slowed down. The first big warning sign. Chrono Trigger had just gotten above 60%, showing what a beast it is on pure GameFAQs strength, but it stopped and feel below again as Melee starting stalling. After stalling for about 20 minutes, Melee went crazy. Chrono Trigger got about the same votes per update, but Melee got huge boosts and started cutting like crazy. It took it no time to shred Chrono Trigger's crazy lead. After just over 2 hours of the match, Melee took the lead. Ultimately, this would be the only lead change in the match. I think anyone that paid attention to the rallies knew that the match was over at this point, but Chrono Trigger fought like a king and that shouldn't go unnoticed. Once Melee took the lead, it slowed down a bit. It won updates, but didn't have quite as ridiculous updates as before. It would continue like this and raise its lead to about where Chrono Trigger peaked, just over 600, then Chrono Trigger started making its first attempt and definitely a good one too. It cut the lead by about 200 in just over an hour with plenty of time to spare. This looked really great, but as you would expect, the Melee fanboys took notice and it became a stallfest. The reason why Melee rallies wasn't as strong as before was because this time it was in the lead, which causes a lot smaller amount of people to care. It's also part of the reason as to why Undertale was so hard to rally against with its come from behind victories. With lots of updates won by both games, Chrono Trigger actually managed to cut the lead down to below 300 votes doing the dead hours. An impressive performance, but then Melee just went on a rampage again. It answered with another strong rally and quickly shot the lead up above 600 votes again. Yeah for some reason, 600 was when Melee felt safe early on. Chrono Trigger didn't stop fighting, not a single bit. It's pure GameFAQs strength was insane, but it was so easier for Melee ralliers to respond to it. They outnumbered GameFAQs by far. In the previous three matches, Nick had rallied on his Facebook page, and up until this match, we didn't really know how big of an impact that had. It seemed clear here. Nick, being the huge Chrono Trigger fan that he is, made several posts on his Facebook page. Everytime he did, Chrono Trigger would get a small boost, but it was very easily made pointless by Melee rallies. After a while, the boosts became smaller and Nick had other things to do, it really couldn't be helped. Chrono Trigger is a huge game, so people figured it must have fans somewhere out there. Well, it's an old game, it's a community for Chrono Trigger would be anything but active. Turns out the active place its most beloved on is… GameFAQs. What do you know! That obviously didn't help. Chrono Trigger's fate was sealed. It never stopped fighting like the king it is here, but Melee fans took no chances at all, so it lose by just more than 1000 votes in the end. You remember how Melee fans even rallied against GSC when it was clearly never going to lose the match, there's no stopping them. And I guess we'll never learn where they were against Kingdom Hearts II. Chrono Trigger would end up having more than 49%, as the match had very high votals. Thus, due to Melee giving Undertale its final challenge in the semi-finals, Chrono Trigger ends up looking great in the x-stats. Something to appreciate I suppose. For fans of Chrono Trigger and fans of contest matches without strong outside forces, this was probably the biggest bummer ever. The the joy and excitement we got from Chrono Trigger destroying Up Your Arsenal, Dragon Quest VIII and even freakin' Final Fantasy X would disappear in an instant. However, having absolutely all odds against it, Chrono Trigger looked like a king going out. It's a shame it was this early, but damn was it impressive once again today. And we got to see that Chrono Trigger would've gotten a fair bit above 60% too during the opening match. That's super impressive. It's a shame we never got to Chrono Trigger fight against the biggest games on the site such as Ocarina of Time, A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy VII because its performances so far shows that it's more than ready to take them down. I think everyone can agree that those matches would've been nice to get. As for Melee, well, another contender for the damn throne just appeared seemingly out of nowhere, although we did get a hint in the GSC match that no one paid attention to. Undertale, RBY, Ocarina of Time and now Melee. I think those were the games people could justify claiming to believe would win at this point. If RBY failed to stop Undertale tomorrow, Melee would likely be the final chance to stop it. Some Zelda fans had hope, but there was just no way Undertale would ever lose in the final against the defending champion. However, some Zelda fans also had redeemed hope because of how Zelda had been able to lay the biggest SFF hammer on Melee in the past and now Melee was in a position where it could perhaps stop Undertale, so Ocarina of Time would meet Melee in the final instead. Optimistic? Definitely, but you could see where they were coming from. It might've been spoken of before, but I think this is the first time Undertale got a significant boost from “bad results”. By this I mean that occasionally some result would happen where people would be like “screw this contest”. For some reason, that helps Undertale. Why? Because that sentence was usually followed up by “might as well just let Undertale win now”. So Undertale slowly got supporters that viewed it as a joke too. They wouldn't rally for it of course, but every vote counts. It's sorta sad. I'm not saying this counts as every supporters Undertale got in the late rounds of course, but it happened and this was probably the first match where it'd be a large amount due to how beloved Chrono Trigger is here and also due to how it was considered a possible winner. Undertale vs. RBY was quite the hyped match right now, but another one would now be Melee vs. whoever won that match. 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